’We followed the course of the torrent to go out of the cavern.  Before our eyes were dazzled by the light of day, we saw, without the grotto, the water of the river sparkling amid the foliage of the trees that concealed it.  It was like a picture placed in the distance, and to which the mouth of the cavern served as a frame.  Having at length reached the entrance, and seated ourselves on the banks of the rivulet, we rested after our fatigue.  We were glad to be beyond the hoarse cries of the birds, and to leave a place where darkness does not offer even the charm of silence and tranquillity.  We could scarcely persuade ourselves that the name of the Grotto of Caripe had hitherto remained unknown in Europe.  The Guacharos alone would have been sufficient to render it celebrated.  These nocturnal birds have been nowhere yet discovered except in the mountains of Caripe and Cumanacoa.’

So much from the great master, who was not aware (never having visited Trinidad) that the Guacharo was well known there under the name of Diablotin.  But his account of Caripe was fully corroborated by my host, who had gone there last year, and, by the help of the magnesium light, had penetrated farther into the cave than either the bishop or Humboldt.  He had brought home also several Guacharos from the Trinidad caves, all of which died on the passage, for want, seemingly, of the oily nuts on which they feed.  A live Guacharo has, as yet, never been seen in Europe; and to get one safe to the Zoological Gardens, as well as to get one or two corpses for the Cambridge Museum, was our hope—­a hope still, alas! unfulfilled.  A nest, however, of the Guacharo has been brought to England by my host since my departure; a round lump of mud, of the size and shape of a large cheese, with a shallow depression on the top, in which the eggs are laid.  A list of the seeds found in the stomachs of Guacharos by my friend Mr. Prestoe of the Botanical Gardens, Port of Spain, will be found in an Appendix.

We rowed away, toward our island paradise.  But instead of going straight home, we turned into a deep cove called Ance Maurice—­all coves in the French islands are called Ances—­where was something to be seen, and not to be forgotten again.  We grated in, over a shallow bottom of pebbles interspersed with gray lumps of coral pulp, and of Botrylli, azure, crimson, and all the hues of the flower-garden; and landed on the bank of a mangrove swamp, bored everywhere with the holes of land-crabs.  One glance showed how these swamps are formed:  by that want of tide which is the curse of the West Indies.